1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus for serving a cold confection into a dish or cone from a small extrudable package filled with the cold confection. The cold confection in the small extrudable package is kept in a state of paste or softening. The cold confection includes items such as soft ice cream (also called soft-serve ice cream), whipped cream, mousse, Bavarian cream, frozen yogurt and the like. These cold confections are referred to as soft ice cream foods.
2. Discussion
Recently, demand for soft ice cream foods, such as cold confections, has been increasing due to the trend toward foods which have a soft touch to the mouth. Conventionally, these foods have been supplied by extruding same with an amount to a food container such as a cone from a big freezer adapted for a soft ice cream or from a bulky vessel and by filling same in the cone. However, such freezers or extruders having a freezer were inconvenient and therefore they could not readily adapt to various varieties of cold confections. Further, it was difficult to change the contents of the freezer as desired. Accordingly, it was necessary to increase the number of such machines and offered to meet consumers' demands. In addition, such machines included relatively complex mechanisms and therefore required a long time in disassembling, maintaining and cleaning.
An object of the present invention is to solve these and other problems in using conventional freezers adapted for soft ice creams; as well as such problems in using extruders each having a freezer. Another object is to provide a handy simplified apparatus for extruding soft ice cream food which can be kept in a sanitary condition with a minimum of effort.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a soft ice cream food dispenser which is small enough to permit a retail outlet to serve a wide variety of soft ice cream food flavors.